Chapter 44
Couples Virtue (夫婦善哉, Fūfuzenzai) is the 44th chapter of Dorohedoro. Summary: The chapter starts where we left Kasukabe, jumping trough the window and falling to the ground outside the cabin, covered in wounds and a big piece of glass stuck on his head, as the morbid looking cross-eyes finds him and prepares to finish him off, Shin appears deflecting the attack with his hammer. The professor is glad to see him, but also notices how heavily wounded he is, the Cross-Eyes recognizes him as one of En's cleaners and hides in the trees knowing his type of magic, Shin knows how little he had left before faint and worries abut how he would fight that twisted looking killer, protect Kasukabe and find Noi. Immediately the Cross-Eyes falls in front of them and the cleaner chooses to grab Kasukabe and be stabbed in the stomach to be able to hold the assassin and finish him off with his magic, to his desperation, no smoke come out of his fingers and his opponent slices his waist open throwing him to the ground, the professor quickly goes to aid Shin and notices the points where he was stabbed recognizing them as the weak spots of Magic Users (Shin is quite infuriated about this because that's the first time he hears about that). The professor explains about the magic smoke organs and how the smoke production is cut if they are damage, even recognizing the Cross-Eyes as his colleague in research, Shin understands why Noi was beaten so easy, as she no longer even dodge attacks, knowing she would heal in seconds anyway. He becomes even more exited and engage in a hand to hand combat with the Cross-Eyes. They are matched but the toll of Shin's wounds starts to show, his opponent prepares to kill him once and for all when suddenly Shin pukes a lot of blood into his face, giving the cleaner enough time to grab his opponent, torn his arm apart and start bludgeoning his head with headbutts until his brains come out. Kasukabe notices the unreasonable amount of surgeries performed in the deceased Cross-Eyes as Shin tries to go and rescue Noi, the professor stops him, knowing how badly wounded he is, the cleaner finally pays attention to the chunk of glass stuck in the professor's head, when he takes it off, a dangerous amount of blood comes out of his head in a comically way, as the professor faints. We see a memory of the professor (recently graduated from college) as he approach a young woman during a stormy night in Hole, she presents herself a Kasukabe, but goes by the name Haru, before be could see more, Shin wakes the professor as he wonders if his wife is truly dead, and graving the bracelet that once belonged to his wife that the cross-eyes was holding, both goes to rescue Noi. Back in the cabin Kento and the remaining cross-eye holds Noi prisoner, when she wakes up the little deformed sorcerer tries to chop her head of as he mocks the fact they "killed" her precious partner showing how he sports Shin's mask. Noi is angrier than ever before, breaks her chains with no effort and kick the cross-eyes to the wall leaving his body stuck in her foot. Kento tries to stops her but she quickly punch him leaving him with serious internal damage, the last Cross-Eyes cries over the altar of "The Boss" praying for him to help him as he uses the last of the research smoke they had left, a transformation-type, giant smoke, making Kento a deformed, mindless behemoth. Elsewhere Dr. Vaux and 13 starts to believe everyone forgot about them. Characters: Main Characters * Shin * Kasukabe * Kento * Noi Minor Characters * Haru (flashback) * Vaux * 13 * The Cross-Eyes Boss (mentioned) * Unnamed Cross-Eyes (killed) Trivia * Kento gave an offering to "The Boss" altar as the leader favorite food, which apparently is Ravioli. * Haru Kasukabe made her first full appearance (as a memory) * Seems like the Magic User anatomy is a field with little to no research in the Magic Users World, mainly because, by common sense, every disease or problem was fixed with magic, making the idea of investigate how their bodies works is more like a topic of interest than a need to understand and cure something. Category:Chapters